Sign up now to subscribe!
Tony Avella made a lot of noise last November as City Council members moved towards raising their own salaries, along with bumps for other city officials. He complained on the Council floor, he gave interviews blasting the decision, he wrote op-eds (including one in these pages).
Knowing that the proposal would pass, the Queens Democrat tried to attach an amendment which would have set the raise for future Council members, eliminated lulus and banned outside employment. The amendment failed. The bill did not, and passed the Council 41-5.
Usually when this happens, politicians disappear again into the woodwork.
But three months later, Avella is pushing a package of reforms which include the ideas in that amendment. He also wants to give committee chairs more independence from the Council speaker in putting items on their own committees’ agendas.
Perhaps most importantly of all, he wants to require Council stated meetings to start on time. This seemingly insignificant bit of legislation is, in fact, essential to the democratic process: a government which meets on its own schedule, sometimes hours after they are scheduled, is one destined to be closed and opaque. The Council’s consistent lateness prevents the press and public from reasonably attending its full meetings, a betrayal of the open government New York City likes to boast about at every opportunity.
Some have accused Avella of grandstanding on this issue, whether for his own aggrandizement or for the sake of helping his unquestionably longshot 2009 mayoral bid.
If so, Avella would not be the first Council member to introduce legislation in the hopes of stroking their own egos or boosting their own political careers. But one way or another, he is the most recent to take a hard look at the inner workings of the Council and try to do something about it. For that he should be applauded.